Samsung may add security chips to the batteries of its cheapest Galaxy phones, such as the Galaxy A57, and one repair expert says the company is copying a move Apple has spent years being criticized for .

According to Korean publication The Elec , Samsung will install authentication chips in batteries for future Galaxy A phones, with around 50 million units planned for 2027 alone. Each chip carries a unique signature created during manufacturing, which lets the phone check whether a replacement battery is a genuine Samsung part.

Samsung’s reasoning, according to The Elec , is safety. Cheaper unauthorized batteries fitted at independent repair shops can be poor quality and, in the worst cases, a fire risk.

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Samsung Is Following Apple’s Parts Pairing Playbook With Galaxy A57 Chip

Ricky Panesar, founder of repair specialists iCorrect, isn’t convinced the safety argument tells the whole story.

“This is a copycat movement by Samsung of Apple’s moves with parts pairing,” he told me. “It’s a clever use of the security chip with the angle of stopping fires.”

His point is that the smartphone industry has other options. In the car industry, he explained, if your Mercedes battery fails, a garage will offer you a choice: the genuine Mercedes part, or a battery from an accredited manufacturer that is almost identical and around 40% cheaper. Nobody talks about security chips stopping fires there, because the alternative manufacturers are regulated.

Galaxy A57 Chip: What Parts Pairing Did To Apple Customers

Apple has used parts pairing for years, much to the chagrin of the repair industry. In 2023, I reported on MacBook Pro displays losing features when replaced with a genuine Apple screen from another device, and on iPad Pro owners being locked out of Apple Pencil features after repairs.

Batteries were part of the same pattern. Fitting a non-Apple battery to an iPhone used to mean losing access to battery health information entirely.

That changed thanks to Right-to-repair legislation in the U.S. Oregon’s ban on parts pairing passed in 2024 and pushed Apple to loosen its restrictions. Today, an aftermarket battery in an iPhone 16 will show battery health, but still won’t show the battery’s cycle count. “It’s almost like a blocked feature,” Panesar said.

Pricing Will Decide Whether This Helps Or Hurts Samsung Galaxy A57 Owners

Panesar is careful not to call this bad for consumers yet. If Samsung uses the chips to fight poor-quality batteries while keeping the price of its own replacements low, he says that is a genuine benefit to users.

But if Samsung’s battery repair prices go up, as he points out Apple’s have over the years, the picture changes. “If pricing comes out and it’s more expensive, that’s a play for profit,” he said. “With a security badge, like Apple did.”

Samsung hasn’t announced any pricing or confirmed its plan to pair batteries in Galaxy phones. But what’s interesting is where it’s starting. The Galaxy A series is Samsung’s best-selling lineup, with the Galaxy A16 5G one of the best selling phones globally. These are budget phone buyers, the people most likely to look for a cheaper battery replacement when theirs starts to fade, which explains why Samsung would start on these devices.

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